The movie Roger Ebert called “just plain dirty”
Having practically turned the medium of film criticism into an art form in its own right, Roger Ebert is one of the most respected cinema writers of all time. He remains an inspiration to all those who see the medium as a conduit to access the deeper and more profound truths of the human experience.
Known for his widespread knowledge of movie history and his ability to sculpt language to his own beliefs, Ebert, writing for the Chicago Sun-Times throughout his life, didn’t just explain the intricacies of film on a narrative and production basis. In addition, he also revealed the medium’s humanistic tendencies.
With a pen in his hand and a typewriter at his desk, Ebert also undoubtedly set about writing scathing reviews of the movies he detested most. It looks as though few were as far down in his estimations as the British-French teen romance movie Friends, directed by Lewis Gilbert.
“Friends is the most sickening piece of corrupt slop I’ve seen in a long time,” Ebert wrote in his review. “It’s so cynical in its manipulation of youth, innocence, sunsets and all the rest that you squirm with embarrassment. And the movie is all the more horrible because you realise that its maker, Lewis Gilbert, no doubt intended this to be a ‘sincere personal statement’.”
The critic continued, “Friends drips with simpering close-ups of wide-eyed young faces. It has a soundtrack of slightly rotten syrup, interrupted occasionally by banal songs by Elton John. It has so many idyllic romps through the fields, so many sunsets, so many phoney emotional peaks, and so much pandering to the youth audience in it that, finally, it becomes a grotesque parody of itself.”
Released in 1971, Friends focuses on Gabrielle and Luke, played by Sean Bury and Anicee Alvina, two adolescent companions who make their way through the complexities of life against the backdrop of World War II in war-torn France. The movie contrasts the innocence of youth with the harsh realities of warfare.
Signing off his review, Ebert continued to tear into Friends, writing, “There must also have been cynicism involved in the creation of the two young characters. There are probably no 14- or 15-year-olds in the entire world like these two; they seem to have been created specifically for the entertainment of subscribers to Teenage Nudist. The archness of their ‘innocence’ toward sex is, finally, just plain dirty. And the worst thing is that the movie seems to like it that way.”
Check out the trailer for the film that Roger Ebert so abhorred below.
